- Good morning everyone.

We have a great show lined up for you today on Sunup.

How is the corn crop looking in northern Oklahoma, we're in the field in Kay County to find out.

Plus an update from Josh Lofton on how the July heat is impacting summer crops.

And Darryl Peel with the latest cattle on feed and inventory reports.

We hope that coffee is ready because an all new Sunup starts right now.

Hello everyone.

Welcome to Sunup.

I'm Lyndall Stout.

We begin today talking about the summer corn crop in Kay County.

We spend a hot late July morning north of Ponca City at the Otto Family Farm.

And is corn your biggest crop where Chad Otto says this is one of his best corn crops ever soybean?

- So this year we got started.

Normal time.

It was a little bit dry when we got started.

A lot of people, a lot of people were a little iffy on planting corn.

We finished right ahead of when the rain started and it started and it never quit this year.

We've had excellent growing conditions all year, as you can see from these plants.

We're fighting a little bit of disease pressure, but for late July to have green leaves from the very bottom all the way to the top for here in Oklahoma.

I've never seen it in my life.

We've had phenomenal growing conditions this year.

It's just been wonderful.

- Talk about your corn, the different, the different varieties that you have.

What do you have?

Do you have different varieties, - Different hybrids?

Okay.

So here in North central Oklahoma, it's, it's a pretty tough environment.

Not only drought stress, but we deal with so much heat stress because obviously it gets really hot here, but we don't cool down at night and that is so super tough on corn.

Trying to find hybrids that can, can handle the heat.

Stress is extremely tough this year.

Almost any hybrid that you can pick would've worked because we're dealing with the most ideal growing environment you can deal with.

Everybody's been talking about, man, you guys are gonna grow the best corn of your life this year.

I don't necessarily know if that's true.

We've had so much rain saturated conditions, flooding, we lost a lot of nitrogen.

Whe whether it be just standing water or mineralization, there is no such thing as a farm that doesn't have a drainage problem.

I mean, there's a lot of water holes, so, but there's gonna be some fun yields in in a field that's, that's for sure.

You can take a look at the ears.

I mean there's, there's, there's gonna be some amazing corn this year.

- They look pretty good size.

- It's - Already, - Yeah.

- And you still have a, you still have a ways to go.

- So we're at dent.

So we're, we're pretty close to black layer already.

I mean these things are so tight, it's hard to get the husk off, but to get a, the cornier like this in north central Oklahoma is, is pretty amazing.

But we're, we're already starting to dry down, but that's a pretty amazing year for here - It is.

- Colonel Depth is phenomenal, but that's gonna be some amazing corn.

We do have plenty of disease, dry land corn here.

Typically we don't have to worry about it because it doesn't rain enough here to cause a lot of disease and when it comes in, it's so late that it doesn't affect yield as much.

Here you can see around the lower canopy, we get a lot of southern corn rust coming in.

I'm gonna say it's probably not gonna hurt us, but we've never been in this situation to where we've had this good of corn.

I'm not saying a fungicide application wouldn't have helped us this year, I'm sure it probably would've.

Typically we just, we turn off so hot and dry that our corn just pretty well flash fries and instantly turns brown and it's pretty well over.

So most of the time on a dry land corn crop, we don't typically waste our money on a fungicide application.

Yeah.

- So between now and and harvest time, what, what are the ideal conditions for you to have, have to be able to get this, this crop that you're so proud of to the finish line?

Like you want - It?

Well, unlike our friends that still have wheat in the field, if we could get another rain tonight, that would actually be wonderful to get us the black layer.

That would be wonderful.

That would take this corn to, to black layer, which cuts off the last moisture intake to the kernel.

That, that'd take it to the end.

- Chad, thanks for having us out to your field and, and best wishes as you, as you get this crop to the finish line this year.

- Thank you.

- At the Otto's nearby soybean field, McKenzie Overman, OSU extension ag educator for Kay County tells us how the summer's going for other producers in the area.

- It kind of depends on where you are in the county of course, but luckily we've had quite a bit of success this year with summer crops.

The rain has slowed down, you know, wheat harvest, but our summer crops have had really ideal conditions.

- Right.

I mean it was, it just rained and rained and rained.

I think we really watched the, the radar closely up here 'cause we were waiting to come out and do our wheat harvest piece with, with the Sheba family.

- Right.

- Any, any challenges that you're seeing specifically in corn that are kind of starting to emerge this kind of late in the growing season?

- It depends on which variety they've planted, but there could be some risk for insect pressure.

I haven't heard much of it, but I do know that it's there.

Another thing to look for is any kind of rusts or fungis coming out.

Hopefully everybody sprayed fungicide but they may not have with, you know, uncertainty on rain.

So those are two things that I see could be a problem this year.

- Switching gears a little bit, we're standing in the Otto family's beautiful soybean field.

Yes.

Talk about beans this year and kind of what that from planting to where we are now, what's that that been like?

- So people that got beans in early, they have a really good stand right now, are starting to see some blossom on those full season beans if you've got 'em in later, if there were some double crop beans and you're waiting on wheat harvest to be done, we're waiting on some maturity, but luckily again, we've had the rain and the conditions and hopefully we'll get some more rain this weekend to to see some more improvement in growth.

- What kind of management guidance are you giving on soybeans at this stage?

- Watch for armyworms, watch for insect pressure.

Make sure that you are going out and scouting your beans regularly to see if we need to put any insecticides on.

So keep, keep that in mind.

That could cause a lot of damage, especially with the moisture we've got now.

- How about any other crops that are, are growing up in northern Oklahoma?

- Well, cotton has looked good.

We've, we've got some cotton here in Kay County.

Not a lot but some.

And that has been coming on really well, thankfully again, but we're still the end of wheat harvest and trying to to get that finished up.

Hay season is in full swing, so be on the lookout for, for people driving tractors and rakes and balers.

So - I don't know that I've ever into all my years of doing Sunup.

Heard about wheat harvest at the end of July going into August.

Is that, did I hear you right?

- That is odd.

Yes, we are.

We are looking at wheat.

That has still not been cut.

We are trying to get that finished up.

There's people who finished up yesterday and there's still some left to cut, but sprout damage has been a real concern with this, with as long as it's lasted in the amount of rain that we've gotten during harvest.

So hopefully everybody can get it out if they don't have a whole lot of sprout damage - And they need those fields, right?

They do.

It's almost time to plant - Again.

It is, it really is.

And and thankfully they'll have enough time hopefully to turn around just I, I'm wishing for the weather to cooperate, so - Let's hope so.

Always the case when you're in the field of agriculture as your profession.

For sure.

- Absolutely.

- McKenzie, thanks so much for having us out.

Thanks for your time and, and best wishes to all the producers in this area with their summer crops and finishing up that week.

Yes, - Thank you.

Thank you.

- Hello Oklahoma.

This is Emma White, your Mesonet agricultural outreach specialist here with your Mesonet weekly weather report.

Remember how last week was hot, hot, hot.

Well this weekend you're likely enjoying a bit cooler relief due to the cold front moving in.

Sadly the temperatures are not expected to remain cooler through the new work week.

Also note that even with the cooler temperatures, the highs could still reach 90 degrees, particularly on Sunday.

So be sure to stay hydrated.

However, these lower temperatures this weekend are also associated with higher humidity as this national weather service example from Norman shows with the relative humidity above 90%.

And if that temperature is at or above 70 degrees Fahrenheit, the pecan scab hours will accumulate that accumulation will likely be statewide.

But with the midweek arriving with the very hot and dry again, this accumulation will likely slow by midweek.

The cattle have also become more comfortable this weekend due to the cooler temperatures.

The more comfortable the cattle are, the lower the water demand.

Unfortunately this will be short-lived as the lower temperatures will not remain below average for long.

Expect an increase again for the cattle comfort index and water demand as we head into this new week.

The hot temperatures that we have had the last month have helped growing degree day accumulation or shortened to GDD accumulation, which is a calculation of accumulated temperature units.

Though this weekend has been a bit cooler, G DDS are still accumulating.

As one could check on the Mesonet by going to the agriculture tab and selecting crops.

Crops such as corn, winter wheat, and cotton heavily depend on temperature for crop development progress.

There is an ideal range of temperature for each crop for which G DDS accumulate the most quickly as of July 30th.

According to the USDA NAS crops such as cotton and corn are making good development progress in Oklahoma since statewide 2025 shows a similar trend.

The 2020 for 2024 average for the state Gary McManus is now up next with your climatology report.

- Thanks Emma and good morning everyone.

Well hopefully, as Emma mentioned, we are getting some cooler weather and you're enjoying a little bit of that because summer certainly hit the fan this week.

Am I right?

And you know what comes with that Summer heat at times drought expansion.

Let's take a look at the new drought monitor map and see where we are.

Well we did see that area of abnormally dry conditions that D zero on the drought monitor expand from the the Texas border over there to the western far western parts of Oklahoma.

It did expand to the east just a bit.

So we are starting to see that start to spread.

Now it's not drought just yet.

Those abnormally dry conditions don't signify drought, but it does show areas in danger of going into drought if we don't get rainfall and hopefully we're getting some of that as well.

The Mesonet's consecutive days with less than a quarter inch of rainfall map tells you why it did expend expand to the east.

Now we have over 30 days in some cases there in southwest Oklahoma without that quarter inch of rain in a single day.

So now unfortunately from the Climate Prediction Center for August 4th through eight, they do see increased odds of above normal temperatures, but especially across the western third of Oklahoma, right where that drought is starting to expand.

So that's not good news.

Well the good news I guess we can end with is it's only about a month or two until we start to see more of those cold fronts and true at least near fall like weather we get into September, we'll start to see more rainfall, a little bit more of that jet stream dipping down.

But until then it's, it's gonna be August and it's gonna be hot.

That's it for this time.

We'll see you next time on the Mesonet weather report.

- We are joined now by Dr. Daryl Peele, our livestock marketing specialist for extension and Darrell, the USDA, releasing a a couple reports in the last few days.

Let's talk about the cattle on feed re report first.

- Yeah, so the July cattle on feed report showed that placements in June were down about 8% and that was more than expected.

So that was a bit of a surprise.

Marketings were about as expected down about 4%, but the large drop in placements pulled the on feed inventory down a little bit more than expected.

So we're running about 1.6% below a year ago.

This is the eighth consecutive month that the cattle on feed inventory has decreased.

So we're in that mode now where the tighter cattle supplies is really catching up with the feedlots.

- Let's talk about heifers now and kind of the picture there in terms of feedlots.

- Yeah, so July also included a quarterly breakdown of steers and heifers on feed.

We were anticipating that number in April, if I can back up a second, that that heifer percentage of the total feedlot inventory started to drop enough to make us think maybe we would see it continue to drop.

It actually ticked just slightly higher again in the July report.

So heifer still represent about 38% of all the cattle and feedlots doesn't suggest that we're holding back a lot of heifers yet.

From the standpoint of the, the feedlot side - Cattle inventory report also released.

What did that show?

- Yeah, so the, the Midyear Cattle inventory report, you know, this is a report we did not get last year, so it's a little hard to interpret.

We can't compare it year over year, we have two years ago.

But the bottom line is that most all of the categories in this report were down certainly from two years ago.

But if you look at for example, total Beef Cow Inventory or the Total Beef Replacement Heifer inventory, both of those numbers were actually the lowest in the history of this report, which goes back to 1973.

So everything about this report combined with the cattle on feed report would say that we're probably not really trying to expand the herds yet.

- And does any, do any of these numbers in these reports change your outlook or, or make you shift just a little bit?

- You know, it really doesn't.

I mean this is the mode we've been in.

We've been wanting, you know, watching for, for, for many months now, indications that we were beginning to retain some heifers that would lead to herd expansion.

This just says it's really more of the same.

We continue down this path.

So, you know, my outlook hasn't fundamentally changed in probably the longest period in my career.

That's for at least two years we've been telling basically the same story and there's just no indication yet that it's changing - And consumer demand still high.

Talk about that just just for a minute.

I mean, there's still a a, a big appetite for beef.

I guess - There is, you know, beef production is beginning to fall again.

We've got tight cattle supplies that's inevitably leads to tighter beef supplies, but beef, you know, beef prices continue high.

We've seen no real indication that consumers are turning away from beef in any way, even though there's lots of alternatives out there.

So as long as that's the case, then you know, the combination of tight supplies from the cattle on up through the beef supplies means that we can expect prices to continue to be very strong and probably move even higher.

- All right, Darrell, well thanks for staying on top of it for all of us and we'll see you again soon.

- Good morning Oklahoma and welcome to Cow Calf Corner.

Our topic this week is a age old question, what should we expect to take home if we have a calf butchered?

This usually comes up about the time the processor has cut and wrapped our carcass and we're trying to determine how much freezer space we need for the actual amount of take home product.

So we walk through a few rules of thumb today and some things that actually influence what we go from in terms of that live finished beef animal that we're gonna turn into a carcass and that ultimate product that we end up taking home.

So we start with the concept of dressing percentage.

Dressing percentage is basically the amount of hot carcass weight that we have relative to the live weight of the animal.

For example, if we butchered a 1500 pound finished steer today and he had a 63% dressing percentage, the 63% times 1500 means we have a hot carcass weight of about 9 45.

Keep that one in mind because as we go from hot carcass weight to chilled carcass weight, since a beef carcass is about 70 to 75% water, we're actually gonna lose another to five percentage from evaporation as we go to that chill carcass.

So factor that in as another potential loss of weight and then think about the concept of going from intact carcass to primal cuts to the sub primals and the actual retail cuts that we wrap up and are in meal ready form.

Now here our basic breaking down the carcass process is done to eliminate most of the bones or skeleton outta that beef carcass to actually separate fat from lean thick cuts from thin cuts, tender cuts from those that got more connective tissue and make these things more user-friendly to the point that we're ready to cook 'em and prepare 'em for a meal.

And so there's loss associated with that along the way and eventually we get to that point.

How much product are we gonna take home from that steer?

Well, we get into several factors that have got a pretty big impact.

One of those is how fat is that carcass at the time?

We start breaking it down based on how much fat we trim off or leave on is gonna influence our take home yield as well.

The degree of muscularity of the carcass is gonna play a role.

A heavier muscle carcass is gonna be a higher yielding carcass in terms of take home product.

Think about this for example, of a beef type steer versus a dairy type steer that we turned into a carcass.

Muscle's gonna be an advantage in terms of yield.

Another thing that impacts us is just the cutting specs that we use or give to our processor in terms of how they're gonna break that carcass down for us.

Do we want all the fat trimmed off that's possible?

Do we want certain cuts to be bone In.

Some people like bone in ribeyes a T-bone steak has got a bone left in it, but it could be turned into a filet and a strip loin steak by taking that T-bone out.

So cutting specs are gonna influence our yield as well.

In the end, what do we get down to based on some of these variables?

Some of these decisions we make in terms of cutting specs, if we take the live weight of that steer general guideline is we should expect to take home about 42% of cut wrapped beef to put in the freezer.

So back to our example, the 1500 pound steer, about 42% of that works out to about 630 pounds of take home product.

Now, if we are working off the hot carcass weight of that steer, expect to take home about two thirds of it, that same 1500 pound steer, 63% dressing percentage, 945 pound carcass.

The 945 pound carcass by two thirds is also about 630 pounds of take home product.

So whether you're buying a butcher steer, feeding out your own at that point, that moment of when it's time to take home the product that we're gonna consume and we're trying to figure out how much storage and freezer space we need, use those rules of thumb.

42% of the live weight or two thirds of the hot carcass weight gives us a pretty good handle on the amount of cut wrapped consumable product we're gonna take home.

Thanks for joining us on Cow Calf Corner.

- It's that time of year for the 2025 Women in Agriculture Conference.

The conference will be August 7th at the Hilton Garden Inn in Edmond, join other women in agriculture and small businesses for a day of networking and learning topics will include how to write a grant, make a will or trust, and using AI and social media to build your brand.

The registration fee is $100.

For more information go to sunup.OKstate.edu.

- The extreme summer heat is starting to put some stress on summer crops, but are the cooler temperatures that are showing up in the evening helping at all to get us up to speed.

Here's OSU extension cropping system specialist, Dr. Josh Lofton.

- Josh Lofton cropping system specialist here at Oklahoma State here to talk a little bit about summer crops.

And just like every summer I think we always talk, it's been a very unique one going from those warm or those relatively cool and wet conditions early that have benefited a lot of our early planted crops into a more moderate summer into what we've been dealing with the last couple of days into a really hot and dry conditions have really impacted the crop.

We see the corn crop planted early, was relatively cool conditions, had some good moisture early, has finished relatively quickly.

We see a lot of our corn going into our dent or our later stages of grain development that should be coming out here in the next month to two months.

And it looks like a great crop That early rains have really benefited it greatly.

Some of our later planted crops have benefited from some of those conditions still, yet maybe the cooler conditions kind of set them back a weak or two.

And we do see they are a little bit delayed from where we would expect them this time of year.

Normally, however, we still are looking pretty good on some of this.

We get a sorghum crop right behind us here it is just getting past flowering, going into that early grain development and, and that's, that's kind of right where we need it to be at this stage in the, in the summer, we are experiencing these abnormally or these more normal hot conditions during this week that we're out filming.

And those hot conditions aren't great for the, the sorghum or any of the crops at this point in time.

But the thing that we have to find great relief in for our grain sorghum crop and our soybean crop is how cool it's getting in the evenings.

We are still getting into the lower eighties, even some places getting into the seventies and out in the panhandle getting out into the sixties.

And that's still very beneficial for these crops.

So even though we're getting really warm, we are seeing the impact of the heat in these crops in the middle of the day.

We still come out in the morning like we're out here this morning, they're, the leaves are really unfolded.

They're capturing a lot of light, they're taking advantage of some of that due.

So we are seeing some, some positives still with this summer, even with this recent spike in temperature.

So as we progress, as long as we stay relatively cool in the evenings and allow that plant to function, we really would like to get down into the eighties for that plant to, to really thrive.

We still are gonna see some positive growth from a lot of our summer crops that are still working out there.

Insects are really picking up.

In the last couple weeks we've seen things from corn, earworms, sorghum, head worms, soybean pod worm, all, all that complex sorghum whirl worms and, and that fall army worms, we have started seeing indication of sorghum aphid or what we used to call sugar cane aphid.

So growers that have crops out in those really, really, really critical growth stages should get out, scout those fields.

The one other thing we're starting to see in corn is some of these striping or or whitening of, of this corn crop.

And we've gotten in several calls about these conditions.

Usually the, these corns, these corn plants are, are a little bit shorter.

They're a little bit further behind as far as growth stage.

And then they have these very, very symptomatic leaves that are spread throughout the plant.

This, a lot of folks are asking about corn stunt, is this corn stunt?

We have seen some, some indications that corn stunt might be showing up in Oklahoma and might be building, but this is actually a different virus.

And so the biggest thing is that we, we have really very little management we can do for this crop.

Right now it is relatively low levels of the field.

We're typically talking 10% or maybe even less than 10% of that field.

The biggest thing is to let us know how impactful this is.

So if you go out into your field and you see that corn, contact your local county educator, state specialist, area specialist, or call the plant diagnostic lab on campus.

What we're looking forward to at the end of the season, we really need, because we were delayed coming into this growing season, we really do kind of need an open fall and see those crops be able to grow relatively far into the fall.

If we have an open fall, still continue to get these periodic rainfalls, I think we're setting up for a good summer crop year.

- That'll do it for our show this week.

A reminder, you can see us anytime on our website, follow us on social media and stream sunup anytime our YouTube channel, youtube.com/sunup TV from northern Oklahoma in Kay County at the Otto Family Farm.

I'm Lyndall Stout, and we'll see you next time at Sunup.